First spacewalk: Aleksei Leonov left his Voskhod 2 capsule in 1965.
Here’s a retro-fire back into the space-time continuum.
It was on this day, back on March 18, 1965, that the first spacewalk – or extravehicular activity (EVA) took place.
Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov left his Voskhod 2 capsule and floated about for several minutes at the end of a tether.
This first EVA proved difficult as Leonov’s spacesuit had inflated in the vacuum of space, making it difficult for the spacewalker to re-enter the spacecraft’s airlock. By regulating a suit valve he was able to reduce some of that spacesuit pressure, enabling him to re-board the Voskhod spacecraft.
Leonov made a second voyage into space as commander of the Soviet half of the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission – the first joint space mission between the Soviet Union and the United States.
To view a video of that first spacewalk, go to:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/shuttle-mir/multimedia/video/v-007.mpg
By Leonard David